As Good As New
by jeromevaleska
Summary: You're a scientist in Indian Hill who helps bring Jerome back to life, and you didn't expect to fall for one of your patients.
The last thing he remembered before he found himself in this strange lab was his mentor's crushing betrayal, that sharp sting when the blade was plunged deep in the side of his neck, choking back on his own blood, the smug look on Theo's face when he came out the victor, and then — nothing.

Waking up, he felt like his skin was on fire, veins burning from whatever they were pumping into him. The world swayed and gradually steadied itself, resolving into a brightly-lit room with a mirrored ceiling, gleaming white tiles lining the walls. His distorted reflection was visible in the lenses of half a dozen different video cameras arranged around the room, their blinking red lights bearing silent witness to his predicament.

Jerome was strapped to a cold metal surface, tipped back slightly from the vertical. Some kind of monitor was set up to his right, beeping at regular intervals. Fighting the nausea brought on by his movement, he turned his head and saw the IV port still in his arm. He ached all over, feeling sharp lances of pain deep in his chest and abdomen and spine when he flexed against the restraints.

A swarm of white-coated men and women milled around the room, absorbed in various tasks. One scribbled frantically on a clipboard while another read out a series of numbers from a set of green-capped vials. Others were packing away a set of ominously large syringes. A tall man walked up to Jerome, unceremoniously grabbing his jaw and shoving a cotton swab in his mouth to scrape the back of his throat. Jerome gagged, but before he had the sense to bite down the man had already capped the swab and hurried off, writing something indecipherable on the label in black marker.

There was a drain in the middle of the tiled floor, looking wet and freshly scrubbed. How long had he been here?

He focused on the raw feeling in his throat and a came a little more into himself. He didn't know how long he'd been out, had no sense of time passing like he did in normal sleep, and he felt like a frog pinned to a dissecting board. Jerome looked around, glancing down at himself to find that he was only wearing a pair of white shorts before trying to get a sense of his surroundings. A tall man with raven colored hair across from him was talking on the phone, his answers sharp and clipped.

"Because I'm understaffed," he said, heaving a long sigh afterwards. Jerome blinked, there had to be at least two dozen of them scurrying around.

"Hey, who are you?" Jerome tried to sound strong and stable, but inside he could feel himself breaking. "Hey! I'm talking to you! Where am I?!" he shouted, but there was no answer.

"Yes. No. I don't need it. Fine, we'll do the standard sampling procedure before then, I suppose. Yes sir," the scientist hung up and sighed again, turning to look at Jerome. No, not at Jerome. The man was talking to someone standing behind Jerome. "You know the drill, just do whatever it is you do when it's you, we're on a tight schedule and I don't have time for this. Let Dr. Strange know how close we are."

Jerome's heart rate kicked up, adrenalin temporarily overcoming the fuzz of the lingering anesthetic in his system. The man rushed out of the room, leaving the rest of the technicians to swarm into the space left by his exit.

Well, almost all the space. A ten-foot radius that encompassed Jerome and the table remained conspicuously empty. His mouth worked as he tried to make himself swallow. Then you came around in your lab coat, leaning in from behind him, close enough that he could hear the whisper of your hair brushing across his collar. He had been drifting again, he'd been coming back to full consciousness a moment before — but then he was out again.

He snapped back to focus on you as you stepped in closer, resting your considerable weight against the sloping examination table. You leaned against his side before reaching over to grab a syringe, and he turned to look around him again, red and black wires running out to some kind of machine connected to that beeping monitor, covered in blinking lights and dials. More wires emerged from underneath him on the table, and he wanted to tear off the restraints that bound him, so he writhed about them, growling while he shook.

"What's in that needle?" he asked. A small crack in his voice implied distress, which you instantly picked up on. "What- what is that?" he managed.

"Tighten up the restraints, he's not cooperating," a woman gave you the order sternly, which you hesitantly complied to.

"No, no, what are you doing, what's happening?" Jerome asked, his voice shaking and stuttering on some words.

You pressed him bodily down against the table, ensuring he had no wiggle room at all as you ratcheted up the last of the straps. "I'm sorry," you whispered, your eyes met his, and then you added, "it's easier if you don't fight, we're trying to make you better," you reassured. "Now, just hold still for me."

He struggled against the newly-tightened restraints, breathing hard through his nose and fighting to ignore the strange, sharp pains that lanced through his chest from the effort. After a minute and another cycle of electricity did nothing to calm him, your free hand went back to the IV line and his head swam. He slumped back against the cold steel, dizzy and sick. This felt so wrong to you, restricting his movements as you ran several tests on his body, but that was what came with bringing people back from the dead, you figured.

Another jolt went through him and he groaned in response. You showed no sign of impatience, just waited for Jerome to wear himself out. After that wave subsided, you finally said, "Let me help you, you're not making this any easier for me," you told him gently.

He thrashed even harder, ignoring the deep pain in his hipbone where a syringe had sunk and extracted. Off to his right, he saw a technician carefully labeling a clear bag filled with viscous, red fluid. They were ignoring him, he was just another interesting specimen all laid out for them to cut apart and study.

"Stop it. You're hurting yourself," you tucked in even closer against his side. You were intent on holding him steady while the electrical current pulsed through him once more. His body helplessly twitched, and he gave himself a moment to hate everything about modern science.

Another wave passed over him and it was hard to get enough air with the pulses coming faster. He could feel his whole chest flushing red under the binds. He desperately wanted to get away, couldn't stand knowing other people were injecting his body with obscure fluids, the scientists working just a few body-lengths away from the two of you. You were holding him tight and just watching him, trying to hush him as you did.

There was a minor flurry of activity as the raven haired man burst back into the room, carrying clear tubing and a flash of steel in one hand, and several precariously-balanced glass bottles in the other. Jerome tried to get a closer look but ended up throwing his head back and gritting his teeth as his body jumped, throbbing as the current passed through it.

"Oh, good, he's responding adequately," he noted, a bit out of breath. "Wasn't sure whether the benzodiazepine mix would suppress cardiac function too much to—"

"I told you!" you interrupted him from across the room, "I told you that we needed to increase the etomidate and use a blocker instead of fentantyl—"

"Yes, well," he continued, flustered. "The equipment is all here, and for God's sake gag him if you need to. I can't be distracted while I'm fractioning off the pleural fluid. The kid won't give it a rest," he said.

You accepted the tubing with your hand and the scientist fluttered for a moment before stacking the bottles on a table, dropping a few thick strips of fabric on top. You hesitated, glancing at your hands and the pile of equipment, then seemed to come to a decision. "No, no, don't you dare—" he manged to get out, before his mouth was full of the sterile, dead taste only achieved by autoclaving something repeatedly for years. You knotted the gag tightly behind his head, as much as you didn't want to. Jerome didn't even get a chance to attempt to spit it out because then he began to quiver again and again as the next cycle ripped through him, leaving him writhing all over the table. You surreptitiously wiped the corner of his eye with a bit of fabric before you looked over at the machine, frowning and adjusting one of the dials.

He had only gone limp for a few moments when you moved to grab a syringe, and he bit off a scream the second you inserted it into his arm. His muffled yells of protest were totally ignored by the lab coats, who were busy pipetting nearly-indistinguishable liquids from one tube into a series of smaller tubes and then putting different kinds of colored stickers on the results.

Someone was shouting something about histology and sample contamination as you jammed the free end of the plastic tubing onto the valve at the neck of one of the glass bottles, but between the drugs and the electricity Jerome was finding it hard to concentrate.

You returned to his side, actually managing to shove his arm under the small of his back, and you were a little surprised to find that Jerome did his best to curl into you, welcoming any familiar anchor in his confused mix of anger and humiliation and fear.

Some unknown amount of time later, after you had switched out the glass collection bottles twice, holding each one critically up to the light each time and writing notes furiously all over it before handing it off to a colleague — the shocks stopped. Jerome would have sagged in relief if he hadn't already been a sweaty mess against the table.

"Okay, we're making really good progress. Just follow the workflow plan and let's keep this moving!" you exclaimed. A team of technicians wheeled a complicated apparatus over to his head and cut away the gag with safety scissors, only to replace it with a ventilator mask. He yelped until the paralytic set in.

He faded out as they intubated him. He wasn't a quitter, that was for sure, and he was glad he didn't have to see what happened next.

He soon woke up later that night, drenched in cold sweat. He had been twisting and turning in his sleep, so when he jolted up, he immediately sprinkled the surface with beads of sweat. A pang of anger, pain, and confusion hit his chest wide and deep. He coped with this by making a sharp gasp, although his jerk reaction was to scream. You were sitting down on a chair beside the table he was on, jotting down something on a clipboard but then you snapped your head up to look at him when he awoke.

"Woah woah, easy," you rushed over to him, trying to calm him down instantly.

He managed to swallow, and croaked out, "Where the hell am I?"

"Jerome, I've already told you this before, you're in Indian Hill," you told him with a small smile, "I promise you're safe here," you reassured before you added, "tell me what you do remember."

"I remember you and a couple of others injecting a bunch of shit in me," he swore, muttering something under his breath about how the scientists here were such shitheads.

"Do you remember who killed you?" you raised an eyebrow, picking your clipboard back up to continue writing your notes.

He took a moment just thinking, trying to recall what happened before all this, and you patiently waited for an answer. Then it came to him, his grimace taking over his features, "Yeah, that fucker Theo Galavan, I'm going to fucking tear him open right now," he jerked about the restraints.

"Hey, hey, you are not going to kill anyone," you told him, "I need to keep you under close observation, for a while, trust me, you're going to thank me for it later," you assured.

"How long do I have to stay here?" he said through a grunt, "Gotham's calling my name, and I need to pay a visit to that arrogant motherfucker," he said hoarsely, snarling.

"For a while, I can't tell you how long exactly," you informed him, and he growled in response. "We just want to make certain everything's fine, there's still procedures that we need to test, so you have to stay here for now, it's only temporary, I assure you," you continued, "You were dead in a tube for weeks, and now you're alive, talking to me, so show some gratitude," you finished.

"Fine, whatever," he muttered, his eyes still examining about the room, "I've been through worse shit than this," he continued, turning his head to look back at you with that devilish charm flickering in his eyes despite the redness in them. "Can you at least untie me, dollface? It's the least you can do," he flashed a smile your way, which was the first you had seen in a long time since his revival.

"You have to promise me," you started, "that you're not going to choke me like you did before," you warned, your hands leaning forward while you spoke. You recalled that first day he awoke, you made the mistake of untying him faster than you should have, and the second he jolted up, he grabbed hold of the base of your neck, pushing you against the nearest surface that was available to him. His fingers dug deep into your skin as he banged your head against the wall, ordering you to tell him where he was, and what you were doing to him. He was confused and angry, you didn't blame him for that, but if he really wanted to know he shouldn't have been choking you in the first place. Nothing relented his hold on you until one of your fellow colleagues inserted a syringe in his neck to knock him out. The marks on your neck were faded now, thankfully.

"Don't worry, I'm not gonna hurt cha, doll," he assured, "That first day I was confused as to why I was still breathing, I didn't mean to leave those pretty little purple marks on your neck," he jested with a impish chuckle, "I still think they really complemented your skin tone though," he continued to tease, and you couldn't help but giggle at that, feeling a sense of self-satisfaction that he was returning to his old self, even though it came with a lot of road blocks along the way.

"I don't think so," you said with a shake of your head, "though that is a fairly common reaction when the dead come back to life here, especially giving most of you people's reputations," you added, before you untied his body from the restraints, which made him sigh in contentment, though his body still ached even when he did a simple movement such as sitting upright.

"Here, have some water," you handed him a cup of water that was placed by one of the tables, "and take this for the pain," you gave him an opioid pill along with the water and he immediately took them both from you, gulping it all down in one go. You waited for him to finish, and set it back down to where you got it from.

"So, am I as good as new?" he asked, the corners of his mouth stretching to that wide smirk you missed.

"Obviously, if your heart is beating, and you're talking," you told him, examining every single one of his movements as you spoke.

"I'll play by your rules," he shrugged his shoulders, "this place and you did me a big favor, I thought I was a goner when that fucker," he placed emphasis on that last word, his chest heaving and he growled upon recalling the person who ended his life, "killed me, but now I'm back," he spread his arms out, his grin returning, "and as soon as I get out of this place, I'm going to raise some hell."

"Good," you said with a curve of your lip, "but do you promise to behave here? I don't want to have to restrain you anymore," you told him.

"Can't much such promises, doll, wouldn't wanna lie to ya," he chuckled, and you only shook your head. "Though when I stop feeling like a lab rat, I think we're gonna have to test things the other way around," he taunted, ogling the way your white bloused hugged your torso, his tongue darting out of his mouth while he did. "I think it's only right if I thank you, you know," he shrugged lightly, "for doing me such a huge favor," he paused before he added, "I mean it doesn't get much bigger than bringing someone back to life, does it?"

You felt heat spread over your cheeks when he teased you, chuckling lightly before you told him, "That won't be happening, sorry to disappoint you," you shook your head in amusement.

He ignored your comment and continued, "Have you ever been fucked in a lab before?" he asked, his head tilting to the side curiously.

You laughed at that, deciding to entertain him, "No I haven't, and I'm not planning on it," you asserted.

"Well," he started, "there's a first for everything, dollface, don't get too ahead of yourself now," he teased, and you merely chuckled.

"You shouldn't either," you leaned in closer so that you two were at eye-level, "just because you cheated death doesn't mean you can do anything now," you disagreed, "so you," you pressed your finger against the tip of his nose, pushing him back lightly, "don't get too ahead of yourself," you told him before you pulled back.

"It's a promise, though, one that I intend on keeping," he continued to tease. He was amused, his grin widening before he decided to drop the subject, much to your surprise. "Well then, why don't you tell me more about this Indian Hill, hm?" he tipped his head to the side, "So, like is it a place where mad scientists such as yourself bring back notorious villains because they rather stay by the sidelines while we run about and do whatever the fuck we want?" he questioned, and you couldn't stifle the laughter that came spilling out, but you were more than happy to explain everything you were allowed to tell him.

You both spent a great while that night talking about your work here, what you did, and how you were helping the other patients at Indian Hill. He was cracking jokes almost the entire time, finding the whole situation to be quite humorous for some reason.

When night fell, you led him to the cell where he would be staying, now that he was awake. Though, he didn't like staying there because he told you he thought it was difficult trying to charm you behind bars.

Many days passed, and because you were the one assigned to care for him, you spent most of your time with him. You fed him each day and gave him his medicine, ran tests to make sure his heart was beating at regular levels, checked on him hourly, making certain that he was as good as new. It didn't take long for him to charm his way into your heart with that natural born charisma, and he almost never failed to make you laugh, it was as contagious as he said it was. You found your visits to be lasting a lot longer than they should have at times, which he immediately noticed, and teased you for, but he told you that he was pleased to see such a pretty face in a place full of lifeless robots that he referred to the other doctors as. He amused you, to say the least, you cared for your other patients but you saw them for what they were, just simply your patients, it wasn't that way with the redhead. It was frustrating, though, because he never made an attempt to touch you, even when you two were alone in his cell, he just teased and flirted with you, it felt like maybe he was just messing with you for fun.

You cared for him. You saw him. You felt an uncontrollable, animalistic craving for the ginger and it grew every day.

At first, you tried to fight away what you felt for him, simply because it wasn't appropriate but you found yourself not caring as time flew, and as you got to know him more. You knew he was a merciless killer, and that it wasn't wise to invest yourself in someone who would probably slice your throat without a second wavering thought, but you couldn't help it. You trusted him, to an extent only, that he wouldn't kill you the moment he got that chance. You felt like you two had a connection, and that he wouldn't have wasted his time flirting with you if he wasn't interested in some way. You did lend a big helping hand in bringing him back, even if you put him through a lot of pain in doing so, you believed he was grateful as he thanked you every day for what you did.

Sometimes, you just had to remind yourself not to overthink. To let go of your always-racing thoughts, how you longed for his touch, to dissipate the unrelenting ache in your heart. You didn't know what had gotten into you, he was your patient, certainly not someone you were supposed to be fantasizing about taking you. Your mind flashed the image of him taking you here at the lab, just like he proposed that night, and it made your stomach turn with hot boiling desire.

One night, when you thought he was fast asleep, you sat at one of the lab benches in the back, skimming through the list of prescribed drugs you would be giving to your patients. It had been a long day and you were tired. The majority of your colleagues went home for the day, leaving only a few who chose to work later, like you did. Still, it was getting late and the words on the paper were beginning to blur together, despite the aid of your reading glasses.

But then when you heard footsteps, you whipped your head towards the direction the sound was coming from, only to see the ginger coming to view, shaking a set of keys on a single finger as he sauntered his way to you.

"Lookie what I got!" he continued to shake them obnoxiously, the noise resonating in your ears.

He looked up from the laugh he'd been having and was reminded very briefly of the look on your face. You looked at him wide eyed and then you finally said, wondering how he escaped the cell he was locked in, "Jerome, where did you get those?" you asked.

"Oh these?" he turned to look at them, shrugging before he responded, "I got them in one of your pockets, can't remember which one," he chuckled, "luckily my fingers were skinny enough to reach to the front keyhole," he hovered over you, watching your expression as you stood up from the bench.

"Jerome," you whispered, trying to keep your voice as even as possible, "you can't be out, right now, you have to stay in your cell," you bit your lower lip and reached out to try and grasp the keys from him, but he only lifted them up higher in response. "Patients are supposed to be getting sleep at this hour," you reminded.

"You make it sound like I'm a caged animal," he replied in a whiny voice before he said, "I had to see you dollface, I know you missed me," he started, closing the distance between both of your bodies while he still held the keys up, much to your dismay. You tried to swallow the lump that caught in your throat upon his body being pressed against yours, a knot forming in your jaw, the tendon of your other hand straining against your skin, you knew he would notice it because he always did. "You won't fuck me in there, so I thought I'd take you here," he shrugged again, as if it wasn't a big deal.

"Jerome," you repeated his name, "we can't do that, let alone do it here," you said, your voice lacking any conviction. You nibbled on your lower lip, sucking it lightly in your mouth. You found yourself mostly thinking about your job, and how you didn't want to get caught fucking a patient, that would be the absolute worst way to go out. But he somehow made his offer seem tempting, and you hated how he made you question everything you stood for.

"C'mon, if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be alive now, would I?" he raised an eyebrow, and you looked everywhere but his direction so that he wouldn't catch sight of the deep blossoming of your cheeks. "I'm tired of those lame tests you keep making me take, those intelligence tests or whatever the fuck, and I think I'm just about ready to move onto bigger, better things, like sex," he emphasized, "we should give it a test run, huh? What do you say?" he suggested, cackling the second he made the joke.

"Right," you answered plainly before you said, "now just give me the keys, Jerome," you heaved a sigh, stretching your hand towards it as you tried to ignore the throbbing ache between your thighs that made you twitch slightly, hoping it would go away if you could just return him to his cell.

"Fine, take the stupid keys," he muttered under his breath, and he finally gave in, placing the keys in your hand.

Satisfied, you exhaled and prepared to turn, but before you could he was against you, the heat of his breath on the back of your neck and the weight of his body covering you entirely against a door. He tightened his hands around your wrists, pulling them both above your head and pinning them there with one, which made you drop the keys to the floor. The other traveled down your side, over your thigh, pulling your hips against his. You exhaled a low shuddering moan, pressing back against him of your own accord. He was hard already.

"I hope you didn't forget that promise I made you doll," he whispered, "I told you I fully intended on keeping it," he said hoarsely, a laugh escaping him.

You tugged your arms free and turned, reaching up to grab your hands down his back, needing to feel him, touch what you brought back. He tossed his head instinctively with a low growl and gripped your waist tightly, pushing you back against the door. You leaned in to kiss him hard, tightening your hands around his back and pulling him down to you.

"Don't waste time," you told him, your voice was rough and low, muttering the three words against his mouth and crushing your lips against his, even harder than the last kiss, moving your hands to his face.

He was all too happy to comply, and slid both hands under your thighs, hoisting you off the floor as you bit his lower lip, drawing another deep sound from his throat. Everything on the table jumped slightly as he dropped you, papers and markers were tossed against the floor as they toppled. You tried steadying yourself enough to remove your lab coat and tug off your blouse, tangling it on your hair and cursing softly. You watched his face as you tossed it aside, but you didn't have very long to look. He leaned forward to throw the rest of the equipment aside, pushing you down hard against the table with one hand once it was all out of the way.

"Looks like the tables have turned," he quipped, tilting his head to the side as he examined you, "I like this look much better for you," he decided. You turned your head one side to look at him, panting and watching him from the corner of your eye, loose strands of hair clinging to your brow. One of the markers hadn't completely rolled away and the edge bit painfully into your shoulder, but you didn't complain. You were still a little taken aback, that the boy you had brought back to life — was now going to fuck you. You had to block that thought out because it sounded too crazy to dwell upon.

The restraint was a comfort and you writhed, gripping the forearm that held you down and digging your nails in hard. You managed to settle one heel on the edge of the table and wrapped your other leg tightly around his hips, wriggling and trying to keep him in your vision.

He made a rough noise in his throat and popped that button that kept your pants up, pulling them down and taking your high heels with them. Then he slipped your panties off, tossing them about somewhere. Before you had a chance to think about the fact that you were stark naked on a table in the lab, he pushed two fingers inside you, rubbing at your clit with the pad of his thumb. That was much more interesting.

"You're fucking dripping, just like how I imagined you'd be," he whispered against your ear. You reached down and touched his wrist, cursing, pressing yourself down against his fingers and slowly losing coherence. He smirked and added a third finger just to see you yelp and squirm beneath him. That was enough, and he pulled back, reaching behind himself to pull down his pants, momentarily distracted.

You fell back against the table for a moment, catching your breath, but immediately slid down the table slightly, rolling over and starting to settle your feet on the floor. You had been ready for a while now, and you needed this, and he knew it. He caught your meaning and grabbed your hips, pulling you back against him and made sure your feet were squarely on the floor.

"Now, just hold still for me," he told you, just like you always did with him. He leaned over you, one hand on the table just above your shoulder and guided himself inside with the other, thrusting inside you fast as soon as he entered you.

For a moment you couldn't do anything but grip the edge of the table, white knuckled, pressing your forehead against the cold steel, toes curling against the floor. A low moan escaped you and turned into a quiet wail, almost without your knowledge.

"Fuck, you're tight," he said gruffly, growling. He leaned back up, pulling your wrists behind your back and holding them there with one hand as he thrust. He set a rough and quick pace almost instantly. Your eyes rolled back in your head as you listened to his grunts and the occasional curse as you tightened around him, rolling your hips back against his whenever you were coherent enough to remember.

"Jerome, oh yes!" you cried his name out. He slammed his free hand down on the table to support himself, forehead pressed between your shoulder blades. You moaned your appreciation against the table as he gripped your shoulder, pulling you back harder against him.

When you felt like you were close, tears in your eyes from how good it felt, the tops of your thighs ached and bruised from bumping up against the edge of the table. He slowly pulled out, releasing your wrists. For a moment you thought he must have heard something and pushed yourself up on one shaky elbow to look over your shoulder at the door. When you saw nothing changed, you glanced at him in confusion but before you could speak he took you by your hips in his hands and rolled you over, making sure you settled in the right spot. You inhaled sharply as he spread your legs open again, not quite sure what his game was, but he settled both hands on your thighs and met your eyes before pressing back in again, slow and deep.

"I know just what you need, doll, just let me give you everything," he said hoarsely around a grunt.

What might have been a question or a complaint slurred into a moan in your throat, and you turned your head to one side again, settling your legs around his hips as he moved against you, inside you. He only pinned one hand down this time, palm over your wrist, holding himself up with the other hand. The sudden intimacy of it all might have embarrassed you but you weren't about to protest in any way. Not about this. You gripped his hair loosely with your free hand before moving it to his neck, his shoulder, clutching his skin hard as he thrust just a bit faster. He settled a hand on your thigh, moving one of his knees up onto the table to better his angle – a soft cry told he'd gotten it right, and he continued, steadily. You lost yourself more and more with each thrust.

You leaned back against the table, arching your back and grinding down against him, lifting your hips off the table sometimes just to be closer, get him deeper, digging your heels into the small of his back. He quickened his pace again, and you strained against the hand pinning your wrists, cursing louder and digging your heels in him harder. He released your wrists and put both hands on the place where your hips met your thighs, pulling you hard into each thrust of his hips.

You groaned loudly, loud enough that you almost covered your own mouth, bumping back against his pelvis, unable to focus on anything but the white heat building slowly in your stomach, the incredible heat of his body against and inside you. You came before him, and he rode through the spasms of your climax, grunting in a way that gave your vague, sex-hazed thoughts of going again before he pulled back, finishing himself onto your stomach.

For a few moments, all you could do was lie there, panting and grabbing at nothing. He leaned heavily on the table with both arms, catching his breath, and then slowly pushed himself up and slid onto the table next to you, sitting and leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. You both settled in the silence for a few moments, letting it ring in your ears. You tested your arms, cautiously, and then pushed yourself up. The dizziness dissipated quickly but you decided it wasn't worth it to stay quite that vertical yet and flopped back down with a sigh.

"Hope you didn't mind me coming on your stomach, thought you wouldn't want me doing it inside because," he cackled manically before he finished, "you're a doctor," and then added, "and a really smart one at that."

"Fuck," you murmured, staring blankly at the wall, and it was all you could think to say.

He leaned back before he replied, "You're welcome," he grinned, shifting one arm to the table behind him, examining you. "It was fun playing doctor with you," he jested before he paused to think to himself, "or at least somewhat, except there was no syringes or feeling like you were going to die all over again, so maybe not," he mused, bursting out laughing again. "Thank you Miss Y/L/N, you always know how to make me feel better," he grinned widely.

You nodded, exhaling hard, meeting his eye before he slipped away from the table. He slid his clothes on in a hurry, and he laughed as he watched you clean your stomach with a towel before you grabbed your blouse, still somehow on the edge of the table, dressing yourself back in your uniform.

"Told you I'd live up to my promise," he told you, and you merely shook your head in response, exhaling shortly through your nose in a kind of nervous half-laugh. You pulled the tie completely from your hair and pushed a few loose strands off your forehead. He laughed, louder this time, and you scowled at him halfheartedly before breaking into a small smile.

"They'd be lost without you — the other mad scientists here. You know that, right?" he told you, his brows furrowed.

You glanced at him, opening your mouth but closing it when you realized you didn't have any retort.

"I know you probably don't believe me, but it's true," he admitted with a softer tone of voice, which caught you a little by surprise. "I've seen what it's like when you're not around. They get things done, sure, but after a while they might as well be standing at the window all day pining for you to come back."

He looked at you with a curl of his lip, and you studied him for a moment, your eyes widened. His eyes flickered towards you as you stepped towards him, studying his face. He settled a hand on your thigh and squeezed lightly, watching your face, and rubbed across your skin gently with his thumb. You weren't sure why the small gesture surprised you so much.

"Oh really now?" you said, your voice challenging though it remained soft still. He caught the cynical edge to your voice. He squeezed your thigh again, then settled his hand on your hip.

"They are good at what they do but they get so wrapped up in their shit they can't see straight about it. You might not know as much, maybe, but that means you can make choices with a clear mind," he told you, his soft tone never wavered as he gazed into your eyes, his own twinkling with a gentle look that continued to take you by surprise still.

A little swell of warmth rose in your chest, but you kept it to yourself, and instead raised an eyebrow at him. "You're sweet talking me, Jerome," you accused.

"Why would I do that?" he chuckled, that maniacal laughter returning, "We already fucked."

You tried to fight back a smile and lost.

"Well Jerome," you said curtly as you made your way to the door where you dropped the keys, "as much as I don't want to do this, you have to go back to your cell, before someone catches—"

He surged forward the second you picked up the set of keys, your back thudded against the wall once he pressed his body against yours, and you yelped upon the sting that met your skin. A hand suddenly reached for the base of your neck, squeezing it tightly as his nails dug deep into your skin. You gasped for air, your eyes dilating as you looked back at him, trying to grasp at his hands and jerk them off you but to no avail.

"Sorry, dollface, I can't let you keep me anymore," he whispered against your lips, hushing you as you tried to scream. "You're such a good doctor, you really are," he said fondly, "but if you really expect me to stay put here doing nothing all day," his grip tightened on you as you choked back any attempt you had of speaking, "then you're the crazy one," he chuckled and then he quickly added, "Okay, I didn't mean that part," he pressed his body harder against you as you continued to writhe against him, "just don't make this harder on me than it already is," he continued to try and hush you.

You tried to scream but you couldn't utter anything because his grip on you obstructed any attempt in doing so.

"I was hoping you'd let me go, thought maybe if I sweet talked you enough that you wouldn't bring me back to that cell, but no, of course not," he shook his head in disapproval, "you don't make anything easy for me, doll, but that's what I adore about you," he told you before he brought a syringe to your view, which you barely made out because your vision was blurring. "There's a man I have to kill, and you're just getting in my way," he rasped.

"Now, you're going to have to hold still for me, one more time," he stuck the needle into your neck, plunging it in deep before he jerked it out, and that was when you fell to the floor, your head crashing against the harsh surface. "I didn't know playing doctor could be so much fun, until I met you," he chuckled, pouring his heart out to you as you laid there.

"Thank you, again, my sweet," he lowered his head down to whisper against your ear, "but I have to be on my way now," he picked the keys back up and tossed them in his pocket before skipping out of the building, cackling to himself and reveling in the fact that he was a free man now.


End file.
